The "Remarkable Futility" Of Rick Santorum's White House Bid.

This Comes From Salon ... ... so you know there's a certain point-of-view going in, but it's an intriguing read nonetheless.

And here's a question for the experts in the room: Does Santorum benefit by Chris Christie finally making his intentions clear? How many Pennsylvania GOP types might throw their support to the hometown guy now that they know that the Garden State Gov is out of the race?

Or is Pennsylvania, at heart, really Romney country?

Here's the nut graf from writer Steve Kornacki's story:

"Sure, in the grand scheme of things, there’s not much surprising about the fact that Santorum is currently the preferred choice of 2 percent of likely Republican voters. From the beginning, everyone knew his campaign was a long shot. If you’d said a year ago that Santorum would enter October 2011 running dead last and barely registering in national polls, that probably would have sounded about right.

But this doesn’t do justice to Santorum’s plight. Because no one a year ago knew that the GOP race would be defined by the chaotic, unstructured and almost random volatility that we’ve seen — volatility that has allowed virtually every candidate in the race to enjoy at least a few weeks of apparent momentum in the polls. Except for Santorum."